If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Straw Dogs - This is another rape movie remake from the 70's. I haven't seen the original, so I went in just being a fan of Alexander Skarsgard, who is great at playing a villain.

A husband and wife move to Blackwater Mississippi, the wife's childhood home. He's a big shot screen writer who the townsfolk think he's a little too good for them. Pretty soon they are slowly preyed upon by a local group of contractors.

This isn't quite I Spit on Your Grave or Last House on The Left. There is a rape scene, but it's a wasted one. There's no repercussion for it and it's almost glossed over entirely. The climax is at the end where everything comes to blows and one side has to die, but it's completely bizarre as to why the characters act that way. The build up is really good, thanks to Skarsgard and the finale delivers action wise, but I can't figure out why they do what they do.

Rental. Ebert loved this for some reason, so there's that.

Contagion

When I saw the trailer for this, I thought of Outbreak right away from the 90's, which I found kind of forgettable. This is basically the same premise, but they manage to keep it interesting for most of it. It's an epidemic thriller starting with a wife and mother getting brutally sick and dying in a matter of hours for mysterious reasons. Immediately anyone she has come in contact with also get sick and die. Since she flew from Hong Kong, the virus is spreading world wide and is growing too fast in cells to create a vaccine.

It's a good thriller because it will most likely make you a germaphobe, at least for a few hours. When I heard people coughing or sneezing during the movie, the story would come to life and make me cringe. Really good story, my only complaint is it's too safe of an ending. I would have done something darker instead of just sending the audience home wanting to buy hand sanitizers.

Apollo 18

I'm a fan of the found footage genre, but this one I wish I had skipped. It's the found footage of the secret Apollo 18 mission where three astronauts never made it back home.

The footage is boring. You never see anything and what you don't see isn't interesting either. It's a waste of time.

Skip it.

Shark Night 3D

I'm a sucker for these 3D horror movies because they're the only ones that use the 3D correctly, blood and guts fly in your face. This one involves a group of college kids taking a weekend trip to a Louisiana lake. A shark shows up and rips off one of their arms during wake boarding. It turns out some locals have infested the lakes with tons of sharks and film tourists get eaten to sell on the black market.

Well Piranha 3D got it right with the amount of gore, humor, nudity, and hilarious 3D. This one lacked the imagination and is too cut and dry.

The movie wasn't boring, just not worth seeing. Maybe a rental, after you've rented Piranha 3D.

Don't Be Afraid of The Dark

A young girl is sent to live with her father and new girlfriend in a very old mansion. The basement is inhabited by some creepy twisted gnome fairy type creatures who want the girl. They travel through the walls and other crevices, stalking people through out the house and only come out in the dark.

I purposely went in not knowing anything about this movie just because the teaser looked so good. I think the movie is just decent. I was hoping it'd be much darker, but it's kind of tame visually. The movie is mildly creepy, but never scary. As far as Del Toro's influences or finger prints on the movie, I suppose the creatures could be from a Hellboy movie or a Mike Mignola comic book where folk tales come to life in a horrible way.

I just couldn't take the creatures too seriously, felt like I could deal with them pretty well if they came after me, but whatever.

If you like horror or creature features, I would give this a chance. Don't go in expecting a scary horror movie.

Columbiana

A little girl's parents are gunned down in front of her in Columbia. She is extremely resourceful for her age due to how her father trained her to survive in case something ever happens. She flees to Chicago to live with her uncle, who is a contract killer. He raises her as one as well.

This is written by the same guy who wrote The Professional, so it is a revenge movie. It could be the indirect sequel where Portman grows up, but lacks the amazing relationship she and Leon had before the bullets start flying.

The movie is a popcorn revenge flick. The story isn't great, but you get to see Zoe Zaldana going around Kill Billing bad guys and the final fight is something special, even if she looks too skinny to pull any of it off.

See it if movies like The Punisher is your idea of entertainment.

Crazy, Stupid, Love

Story about a man on the verge of getting a divorce, he meets a young womanzier who helps him re-invent himself as desirable man. On the the other side of the story, the womanizer falls for a girl who doesn't care about any of his tricks.

There's a little too much going on at times with the focus on the wrong guy in the movie and some corny scenes to finish to it off, but despite it's flaws, the movie is really funny and entertaining. It has a really good cast the carry the entire thing home.

Cowboys & Aliens

An outlaw wakes up in the middle of nowhere in the old west with no memory of who he is or how he got there. One thing he does have is a strange device on his wrist. Turns out he is a wanted man, but that becomes irrelevant when aliens invade and kidnap the townsfolk.

Well this is one of those movies where the original trailer is actually better than the movie. It's not a bad movie, but nothing like it's advertised. It's a very straight western with aliens thrown in. It's cowboys and Indians vs. aliens. Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford are enjoyable, but the movie feels a little below them. Oliva Wilde is great to stare at, but I think that's the only reason she was put in this.

Not a bad movie, but don't expect too much outside of a western.

Final Destination 5

5th installment of the death by gore series. Same story, different cast. I actually love these movies because they don't she away from what they are and don't pretend to be anything else. That being said, this felt like the weakest out of the five. The deaths are great, the 3D is probably going to be the best of the year so far, but it's a little too empty in the character department. The cast is just weak and you don't mind them getting the worst deaths possible.

But I'd still see it. It's a really fun movie, if you like cringing and squirming in your seat. Like I said, the 3D is actually 3D. Most movies use the gimmick to jack up ticket prices while making a cereal box in 3D when a couple has breakfast. This one uses the 3D to add exclamation points to the gore and accidents.

The Devil's Double

True story, or at least based on a book of Uday Hussein's body double, about an army lieutenant forced at gun point to play the part. Played by Dominic Cooper, Howard Stark in Captain America, he has to be Uday's side at all time and experience all the horrible things he does such as rape, murder, and torture.

The movie is really good, mostly due to Cooper's amazing double acting as Uday himself and the body double, two completely different personalities. It doesn't really glorify anything he does, like Scarface, but the movie is stylish and fast paced.

I'd reccommend seeing this at some point. It's limited release.

Bad Teacher

I initially didn't want to see this because the trailers offered no protagonist. It seemed like Cameron Diaz was the villain and the main character. Then I read two good reviews saying it's better than it looks.

And all that is true. This is a movie where the bad guy is the center of the movie. She's a 7th grade teacher who is self-absorbed, shallow, a gold digger, and very raunchy. And her opposition, the good natured and honest teacher is the villain. Some people will taken back with the backward formula of the movie, but the film is really funny thanks to the great cast.

The movie's main strength is that the character doesn't do a 180 at anytime of the story and stays consistent.

See it for a good laugh or rent it for later.

Red State

So this is Kevin Smith's personal project to make a movie with zero marketing from a studio, which usually costs atleast a $100 million or more. He financed the entire thing himself and used social media to create word of mouth. I could have gotten a ticket early in the year, but the worst seats went for $130. Forget it.

Another thing surrounding the movie is if this is Smith's attack on the political right. Well let's get to the movie.

It's largely based on those people who protest funerals of gay people. In this movie they're called The 5 Points Church. They're a large family of Christian extremists with headquarters in a large compound, such as David Koresh.

Well three teenagers find a website where you can meet people for sex. They travel to the strange location, get roofied, and end up at the 5 Points Church to be executed.

Okay I have to hand it to Kevin Smith, he's actually an excellent horror director. This is very old school Texas Chainsaw Massacre good. It feels nothing like a Kevin Smith movie.

However, he blows it in the last quarter when the horror movie ends and we're left with cheap political social commentary on the government and religion.

There's some really good acting with the cast, including John Goodman. It's a flawed movie, but worth checking out for the early horror moments and dark comedy.

There's room out there for Smith to try a full on horror movie, but he might also blow it like Rob Zombie.

This is the story of a general manager of a low budget baseball team using statistics over scouting to build a new team. The idea is to create the same results as a high performance big budget team using players nobody wants, but who have the right tools to get the same results at the end. The GM, Billy Beane, is played by Brad Pitt and his statistician is Jonah Hill. Both are pretty decent in their roles. The stats aren't that simple since the coach doesn't believe in them and the players themselves don't know what their roles are as those stats.

Pretty decent sports movie. You don't have to know anything about baseball, as the GM himself doesn't watch his own games. It's more about watching him take a huge risk using a system that goes against everything scouts believe in when playing a baseball game.

At my twelve year old's insistence after our having recently enjoyed RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES in the theater, last night we saw the original PLANET OF THE APES at home.

I have to say the film really holds up considering its age. And it was interesting to see how a lot in RISE was linked to the original -- the name 'Bright Eyes', some of the scenes being similar but flipped, etc.

Alex asked a thought-provoking question at the end of the film. He said, "At the end of RISE they showed that humans were destroyed by the plague. How come they say it was nuclear war in the original?"

I answered that it could have been that Taylor was wrong about Mankind perishing because of war; that it may have been the plague, as they showed in RISE, and the remains of the Statue of Liberty in the water was simply because of entropy or, perhaps, a rise in the ocean's water level over thousands of years. Alternatively, it may have been that humans managed to conquer the spreading plague we saw at the end of RISE and went on the have nuclear war thousands of years later.

At my twelve year old's insistence after our having recently enjoyed RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES in the theater, last night we saw the original PLANET OF THE APES at home.

I have to say the film really holds up considering its age. And it was interesting to see how a lot in RISE was linked to the original -- the name 'Bright Eyes', some of the scenes being similar but flipped, etc.

Alex asked a thought-provoking question at the end of the film. He said, "At the end of RISE they showed that humans were destroyed by the plague. How come they say it was nuclear war in the original?"

I answered that it could have been that Taylor was wrong about Mankind perishing because of war; that it may have been the plague, as they showed in RISE, and the remains of the Statue of Liberty in the water was simply because of entropy or, perhaps, a rise in the ocean's water level over thousands of years. Alternatively, it may have been that humans managed to conquer the spreading plague we saw at the end of RISE and went on the have nuclear war thousands of years later.

Any speculation from you guys? I hate loose ends.

While Rise fits in with the old series's continuity more than most reboots do, it's still a reboot. You'll drive yourself mad if you are looking for a way that Rise fits in perfectly with the canon of the first 5 Apes movies. Caesar, in the original movies, was the son of Cornelius & Zira born after they traveled to Earth in the past. Also, Beneath The Planet Of The Apes shows that nuclear weapons were what destroyed the Earth.

While Rise fits in with the old series's continuity more than most reboots do, it's still a reboot. You'll drive yourself mad if you are looking for a way that Rise fits in perfectly with the canon of the first 5 Apes movies. Caesar, in the original movies, was the son of Cornelius & Zira born after they traveled to Earth in the past. Also, Beneath The Planet Of The Apes shows that nuclear weapons were what destroyed the Earth.

Then I'll prefer to think that the plague was stopped and Mankind went on to nuclear destruction.

You're quite correct (and perceptive), Mr. S, that I would drive myself crazy over this. When Kim moved into my home in Florida oh-so-many years ago, she opened the kitchen cabinets, looked inside and asked, "Do the coffee cups handles all have to be facing in the same direction?" I replied, "No, but it pleases me."

Then I'll prefer to think that the plague was stopped and Mankind went on to nuclear destruction.

Maybe the plague changed. In the original series, dogs & cats were wiped out due to one. That's why apes were used as replacement pets.

Originally Posted by Heeeere's Olesker!

I do like a sense of order.

I can't point any fingers. I'm pretty anal about things being organized & neat myself. It also drive me nuts when movies or TV shows mess up their own continuity. I've been that way my whole life. I still haven't gotten past Chuck Cunningham disappearing from Happy Days after the first season never to be mentioned again.